


Sweet On You

by myadamantiumheart



Category: Avengers
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-31
Updated: 2012-01-31
Packaged: 2017-10-30 09:55:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/330458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myadamantiumheart/pseuds/myadamantiumheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darcy's got a secret admirer who's sweet as pie, and they've been leaving her valentines.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sweet On You

**Author's Note:**

> I just love Darcy/Steve, and when I saw a post from pastatheory on tumblr talking about a Valentine's day fic with the two of them I couldn't resist.

**_Monday_ **

 

When Darcy trudges up to her desk in the Stark Tower lab the Monday before Valentine’s Day, there is a small lilac heart edged with black lace sitting on top of her neat stack of clipboards and ledgers, and Jane, Bruce, and Tony are all snickering behind her. With a sigh, her head still foggy and half-asleep, she slumps into her chair, dropping her messenger bag beside it and picking up the heart. _Happy Valentine’s Day_ , it reads, and there is a small ‘x’ at the bottom next to a cursive S. The paper is thick- cardstock, she thinks, and there are small sunflowers painstakingly crafted of tissue paper adorning the open space around the beautifully hand-scripted letters. Sunflowers are her absolute favorite- she has pajamas with a pattern of them, a sunflower embroidered sundress, a spare IPod cover with a sunflower painting- it’s no secret to anyone in the Avengers’ mansion that she loves them.

“Who’s your sweetheart?” Calls Tony teasingly.

“Why are you even here?” She grumbles. “You’re a fucking billionaire with a suit of armor. Don’t you have damsels to save or something?”

“Pepper blocked all his calls after the fifteenth attempt to ask her out,” Jane offers, and Tony grimaces.

“That is totally not why I’m here, by the way. I was actually stopping by to ask Jane about the latest on the Higgs boson particles. I heard there might be a breakthrough. Just thought I’d ask if she would want me to fly her over there or somethin’.” Bruce muttered something that sounded suspiciously like ‘don’t let Thor find out about your science boner for her’ before turning away. “Anyways,” Tony plows on, “I decided to stick around and see who’s been leaving love notes for my favorite assistant.”

“Flatterer,” Darcy smirks as she flips the card around, looking all over for something other than the ‘S’. There isn’t any notation- nothing to lead her to a suspect. “I have no clue. It’s not even Valentine’s until Friday, I don’t know why someone would leave it there.”

“I could DNA test it?” Bruce offers from behind his whiteboard. Darcy shakes her head, clipping the pretty valentine up on the corkboard on the wall beside her desk.

“That’s fine. Whoever it is, I’m assuming they wanted to stay secret. I don’t wanna embarrass anyone.”

“That’s surprisingly sensitive of you, Lewis,” Tony snarks, laughing as she chucks a paper clip in his direction.

“Get lost, Stark.”

 

**_Tuesday_ **

 

Tuesday morning, there’s a small light purple vase on her desk next to her computer, filled with just blooming daffodils. A small cornflower blue ribbon is wrapped around the neck, securing a little card that says _I couldn’t find any sunflowers, but these are the same color.  Happy Valentine’s Day~ S._

Her stomach flutters a little at that, imagining her faceless admirer standing in front of the flower shop, comparing flowers to find some the right shade.

“Lovely daffodils,” Natasha remarks knowingly when she comes in later to collect Bruce for a scheduled Avengers training session.

“You know something,” Darcy accuses. Natasha simply looks down her nose at Darcy, a faint hint of amusement in her eyes, before turning to Bruce and ushering him out of the lab. Darcy stares after her as she glides out, the doors clicking shut behind her and Bruce.

Natasha definitely knows something. And yet, despite Darcy’s now-burning curiosity and frustration at not knowing who’s responsible for her secret gifts, she finds herself mollified every time she catches the splash of bright yellow out the side of her eye.

 

**_Wednesday_ **

 

Wednesday, Darcy gets there early in hopes of catching her secret admirer red handed and getting a confession out of them. Unfortunately, she only finds disappointment- there is nothing waiting on her desk, nor anyone loitering around.

With a moue of discontent on her face, she instead resigns herself to another hour of doing paperwork before Jane and Bruce will even arrive from the mansion. Throwing herself into her work with one eye on the door just in case her secret valentine shows himself (or herself, Darcy’s not very picky about that sort of thing), she wiles away the time until the other occupants of the lab get there.

In fact, she’s so engrossed with her work that she doesn’t even notice the secretary knocking on the door before the alarms are triggered as the poor woman attempts to enter the lab without the proper key code. While the secretary jumps back, waving her arms in an aborted motion as she tries to figure out what she did wrong, Darcy hurries over, disengaging the alarm and opening the door.

“I’m sorry,” the secretary says, holding out a huge coffee with Darcy on the side in those now-familiar script letters. “But someone just dropped this off for you with an envelope?”

“Thanks,” she says, grabbing the cup and the envelope. “Sorry about the alarm, I really should put a sign up so people don’t accidentally trigger it.” The older woman waves it off, tells her to have a nice day, and clicks away slightly more shaky than when she arrived. Shutting the door behind her and slowly walking back to her desk, she juggles the coffee, sipping it cautiously, and stares at the envelope. The coffee is a hazelnut-vanilla latte, three sugars, whipped cream- her absolute favorite, and perfectly made. The envelope is a pale amethyst with a paisley design. She carefully slits it open, reluctant to ruin the lovely stationary, and out falls a fifteen dollar ITunes card and a small slip of folded up paper that matches the envelope. She sets the coffee down on her desk, sliding into the swivel chair she wrestled out of Tony, and unfolding the note. _Hope I got your coffee order right_ , it says. _And enjoy the new music. Happy Valentine’s Day~ S._

She groans in frustration. She’d come on time anyway. And still no success- they must have noticed her in here. Damn glass walls. She sipped her coffee, using one bright red nail to chip the silver off the code on her ITunes card. If she was gonna be here for another 27 minutes waiting for Jane and Bruce, she might as well update her playlist.

 

**_Thursday_ **

 

She doesn’t even try to get there early this time. It’s no use- she’s already tried that trick. She does, however, corner Natasha in the kitchen before breakfast.

“Please,” she begs, putting on her most pitiful face. “I just want to know who it is so that I can make out with them.” Behind her, Peter chokes on his cereal.

“ _What_?” He coughs out, setting down his spoon. Natasha glares over Darcy’s shoulder at him, and he promptly shuts up.

“You’ll just have to wait and see,” she says aloofly, raising an eyebrow and fairly disappearing, she’s gone so fast.

“How does she even _do_ that?” Darcy grumbles, pulling open the refrigerator and studiously ignoring the rainbow oatmeal filled Tupperware full of what Thor has started calling his “Bifrost breakfast”. 

“Russian ninja magic,” Peter offers, slinging his bag over his shoulder and opening a window. He climbs out of it, waving goodbye to her and crawling down the side of the mansion towards the driveway. She shakes her head, grabbing an apple from the fruit bowl. Darcy’s fairly sure her life will never be normal again.

 

When she enters the lab, Jane wiggles her eyebrows at Darcy, nodding her head over at Darcy’s desk.

“Looks like your secret admirer was back once more,” she grins, scooting over on her chair. “C’mon, open it. Open it.”

She sighs, rolling her eyes and shoving her bag under the desk, picking up the nine by thirteen package and tugging the tape off strip by strip. She unwraps the brown paper, pushing the strings off and finally revealing the piece of thick watercolor paper beneath. It’s a painting- a painting of her. It’s not any particularly memorable scene, just her sitting in what appears to be the awesome window seat on the third floor of the mansion, a IPod headphones in and an open book in her lap. She’s looking out the window over a rainy New York, a faint smile on her face, and her eyes are far away. She looks… Well, she looks beautiful, which Darcy is fairly sure is a mistake. She’s pretty, for sure. She’s got a great rack. But this makes her appear sort of a stately beauty, like an old photograph. It’s signed in the corner with the same _S_ that has signed every other gift.

There is no note- only the initial. A smile spreads across her face as she holds it out, looking it over again. Jane makes an impressed sound.

“Thor’s great, don’t get me wrong. I love him. But he’s definitely not the artistic romantic your little admirer is.”

“More the barbaric romantic,” Darcy laughs, hopping up to kneel on her desk and grab the framed miniature periodic table that’s hanging on the wall next to her. With a quick switch and a vaguely insulted look from Bruce, the portrait is hanging in the mahogany frame beside the pinned up notes and the card from Monday. She loves it already.

 

**_Friday_ **

 

In the elevator on the way up to the lab, Darcy’s stomach twists and turns, fingers wrinkling the bottom of her hoodie as she waits for the doors to ping open. Today- today’s Valentine’s day, and she’s almost bouncing as she walks into the lab, sliding behind her desk and looking all over. There’s a post-it note on her computer screen (lavender, of course), and a dry-cleaning slip taped beside it. The post-it note has an address on it, and a small note in that perfect handwriting. _Last surprise, I promise. Be there at 4 o’clock. Happy (actual) Valentine’s Day, Darcy~ S._

The rest of the day is absolute torture. She fidgets in her seat, looks up the address about five hundred times to make sure she leaves on time, and clicks her pen until Bruce confiscates it. The address is, indeed, that of a dry cleaning shop, so when 3:45 pm finally rolls around, she slips the dry cleaning receipt into her pocket on her way out the door, slinging her messenger bag over her shoulder and grinning the whole walk over. When she arrives, Natasha and Pepper are sitting outside the shop on a bench, Pepper sipping a coffee and checking her PDA, Natasha with a faint smile on her face.

“Hi?” Darcy says uncertainly, looking between the two redheads, and Natasha’s smile actually grows. Pepper looks up, smiling as well, her PDA disappearing into a suit pocket.

“Hello, Darcy,” she says, standing and hugging her. “We’ve been sent to get you ready.”

“Get me ready?” she asks, confused, but Natasha simply smiles wider.

“I told you yesterday, you’ll find out soon. Now, receipt?” Darcy hands over the thin sheet of paper, waiting outside with Pepper while Natasha goes in to retrieve whatever the slip is for.

“So…” Darcy says slowly. “I’m not allowed to know anything?” Pepper shakes her head, amused.

“Nope. Well, I suppose you can know that we’re going to the spa next. Tony’s paying, too.” She grins at the older woman.

“He got you to agree to dinner?” She rolls her eyes, but there’s affection in Pepper’s voice when she speaks.

“He did indeed. Actually, he wanted to give us a whole day at a spa and three separate limos to get to our destinations, but I managed to talk him down. “ Darcy laughs, shaking her head as Natasha exits the shop carrying three dress bags over her arm with seemingly no effort. The three of them pile into a waiting car, Happy smiling at her in the rearview mirror as she slides in.

The spa is beautiful- she expected nothing less- and a quiet lady attends to her, leading her in for a relaxing pedicure (she chooses lavender, just for her secret admirer), a manicure (a darker purple), and a facial. She leaves an hour and a half later with the other two women, refreshed and feeling kind of fancy.

“Where to?” she asks Pepper.

“Tony’s penthouse,” she replies, checking her PDA again. “We’ve got to get dressed, Natasha and I need to get you to the drop point by seven.”

“Drop point?” Darcy is fairly sure she’s never had a girls’ date preparation ritual that was so militaristic. Natasha simply smiles her all-knowing smile and nods.

Darcy decides it’s better not to ask.

 

By seven o’clock, she’s been primped, hair set in neat curls as opposed to her usual wild chestnut mane of waves and tight springs, make-up done perfectly by Pepper, little peep-toe wedges with a kitten heel showing her shiny new pedicure on her feet. The dress bag from the dry cleaners turned out to contain a beautiful burgundy dress. The bottom hem, a swishy end to the vintage-inspired A-line skirt, has black lace peeking out from beneath it. The top, a retro bodice with thick satiny straps, lace edging the décolletage just like the bottom hem, fits her perfectly. When she muses about that, Natasha simply rolls her eyes.

“Of course I know your measurements,” she drawls, focusing on doing the clasp on Pepper’s pearl necklace. Darcy, once again, decides it’s better not to ask, and to attribute it to Natasha’s Russian ninja powers.

At seven o’clock sharp, she’s dropped off in front of a converted warehouse in Brooklyn, Natasha waving smugly from the car and Pepper giving her the thumb’s up. Grinning back slightly nervously, she scales the stairs from the lobby to the third floor, looking down at the paper in her hand that has an apartment number on it. Finally, standing outside the door to the apartment, her heart fluttering, she reaches out and knocks on the door. After a few tense moments of waiting, it swings open with a slight creak to reveal one Steve Rogers, cheeks pinking at the sight of her. He looks absolutely gorgeous, in her opinion, dressed in his old military dress uniform, hair combed perfectly into its side part, blue eyes wide and earnest.

“Ah, Darcy, hello,” he says softly, a bashful smile on his face. “I- you look beautiful. Come on in.”

“You don’t look so bad yourself,” she replies, walking into the apartment and taking in the display. The small dining room table is set for two, candles and flowers and everything, the lights dimmed slightly, and it’s suddenly very clear what the S on all her little gifts stands for.

“Steven Rogers,” she says, turning to him with a grin on her face. “You absolute rake.” He flushes deeper, ducking his head.

“I, uh, well, I just- Natasha seemed to think you’d like it?” Darcy laughs, stepping closer to him and placing a hand on his arm.

“I did. Thank you. Seriously. The picture was absolutely lovely, really. And the flowers, and the card- everything.” He grins shyly down at her, his medals gleaming dully from the reflected candlelight. “Though, I’ve got to ask, light purple?”

“Red plus white plus blue,” Steve flushes, looking down at his feet. “It was Tony’s idea.”

“It was a good idea,” she laughs, stepping even closer. “I liked it. Thank you, really.”

“Well, happy Valentine’s Day, Darcy,” he murmurs, taking her arm in his. “Shall we eat?”

“That sounds lovely.”

 

The dinner is delicious- Steve had spent most of the day making it, a thick beef carbonnade with mashed potatoes, red wine, an arugula side salad- it’s divine and Darcy enjoys every bit of it. The conversation is quiet, at first Steve growing bolder and more talkative as the night goes on. And it’s really quite endearing. Darcy learns that this is Steve’s apartment, the one he stays at when he’s not in the Avengers mansion, when he wants to get away or do art without interruption, or just feel like a normal kid from Brooklyn again. It’s pretty nice, too, roomy and decorated in a very vintage style that fits Steve perfectly.

She’s enjoying herself immensely, to tell the truth. Steve’s always been her favorite Avenger, despite the fact that since she and Steve had finished Darcy’s Fury-ordered tutoring of Steve in the history and culture of the past 70 years, she hardly gets to see him as much as she wants to.  Here, in the dim light of the apartment, laughing at a joke Steve’s told and seeing the affection in his gaze as he looks back at her- this is pretty much perfect.

Darcy’s not blind; she knows Steve’s attractive. Well, attractive is an understatement. Absolutely smoking hot and the star of several of her most-visited fantasies is more like it. And she’s also genuinely got chemistry with him, which delights her to no end. He’s smart, he’s sweet as pie, he’s polite, and he’s attracted to her for some reason she can’t fathom, and she couldn’t be more tickled pink about it.

Plus, when dinner’s over, he excuses himself to go to the kitchen and comes out with two little chocolate lava cakes. She has to restrain herself from asking for his hand in marriage right there at the dinner table, and she tells him so.

“Jane said it was your favorite,” he offers, sheepish, and she can’t help herself- she tugs his tie out of his immaculate uniform and drags him down for a quick kiss before letting him return to his seat, flushing bright red.

“It is,” she murmurs, grinning at his blushing face.

“I can tell,” is his dry reply. They eat in relative silence until Darcy hits the gushing center, shoving an unladylike spoonful into her mouth and letting out a moan of delight.

“God, that’s good,” she groans, taking another bite and licking the spoon before noticing Steve’s wide-eyed stare. She smirks, dipping the spoon back in the melted chocolate and sucking on it slowly. “Like what you see, gorgeous?” Steve swallows heavily and nods a little.

“I- yeah. Yes.” He stutters out. What a cutie. She grins, folding her napkin demurely and setting her spoon down. And then she’s on the other side of the table, shoving at his shoulder to move him and sliding into his lap, fingers curled around the lapel of his dress shirt.

“Hi there, soldier boy,” she hums out, smiling at him and his wide blue eyes. “Still like it up close?” His eyes darken, hands hooking gently around her waist, a small grin quirking his (far too full and red for her sanity, Darcy thinks) lips.

“I like it all the time,” he says softly, leaning forward to slowly press a timid kiss to her cheek.

“I like _you_ all the time,” she counters, kissing his cheek in return and pressing her thighs to his trim waist. “But right now I’d like you naked.” He sucks in a breath, hands tightening around her waist before they slide down to the back of her thighs and he stands up.

“I believe that could be arranged.”

 

His bedroom is fairly Spartan- a California king in the middle, which Darcy assumes is because it’s the only one long enough for Steve, a night table on either side, a closet to the side, and a desk. He slides her down onto the soft duvet, shucking his shoes and sitting on the side of the bed, his fingers playing across the top of her foot. “Can I?” he whispers, looking at her with earnest eyes. She nods, sitting up against the headboard and sliding her fingers under the snaps of his dress jacket, snapping it open and starting on the buttons as he slips her shoes off and his fingers find her zipper.

She figures Natasha probably won’t kill her for messing up her carefully coiffed hair, so when Steve pulls her into his lap, reversing their positions so that he’s against the headboard, she doesn’t stop him from running those careful artist’s fingers into her chestnut mane. His kisses are hot and sweet, candy on her lips and then heat on her throat, making their way across her shoulders as he slides off her dress straps. She grips tight with her thighs around his hips, tugging at his golden hair and spurring his name breathlessly into the heat of the bedroom each time he finds a sensitive spot. He looks at her reverently, like she’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, and when they’re sprawled out, sweaty and curled together in his navy blue sheets, he tells her as much.

“You’re lovely, Darcy Lewis,” he murmurs into the hollow of her throat as he lazily places feather-light kisses across her torso, one hand spanning her hips and legs tangled with hers.

“So are you, Steve Rogers,” she whispers back, and his smile is a brilliant sun in the shadows of the room. His fingers twine around hers, bringing her hand up so he can kiss the back of it.

“Go steady with me?” he asks, shy once more, those cerulean irises fixed on hers.

“You gonna put your pin on me, soldier boy?” she teases, bending her head up to kiss him softly. He grins at her.

“You gonna be my girl?”

“Of course,” she laughs, leaning her forehead against his, curling closer. He kisses her again, bright and ecstatic and everything she’s come to love about Steve in the past year or so since they first met at the original Avengers briefing.

Happy Valentine’s day, she thinks, fingers tangling in his dandelion hair, feeling the vibration of his moan against her as he rolls her onto her back, hips rocking, and he’s hard again, hooking her leg around his waist with a gentle hand.

Happy Valentine’s Day indeed. 


End file.
